In the past 15 to 30 years, exercise and weight training has become very popular. Traditional weight training typically uses free weights to maximize the amount of work done by a targeted group of muscles. Typically, the weights are attached to barbells, which a user moves in a desired manner to exercise the targeted muscles. Because the weights are not restrained but merely held by the user, there is a significant risk of injury to the user or someone else nearby if the user accidentally let's go of the weights. Furthermore, dropped weights can cause damage to floors and other surrounding surfaces. Another disadvantage of free weights is that a user can strain or otherwise injure his or her muscles if his or her technique of using the weights is improper.
For reasons of safety and convenience, weights have been incorporated into mechanical gyms wherein the user pulls or pushes on handles to raise or lower a set of weights connected to the handles by way of pulleys and cables. These gyms often require substantial support structures to contain the weights and direct the cables and pulleys. Accordingly, these gyms are usually bulky and heavy and are not particularly suited for use in residences, especially smaller residences, such as apartments, where space is at a premium. Additionally, these gyms are relatively expensive and tend to provide resistance in a single plane only versus the multi-plane and multi-directional resistance to movement permitted when a device having a rope pull is utilized.
In the recent past, a number of exercise gyms and apparatus that do not use weights have found their way into the marketplace. To provide the necessary resistance to work muscles these gyms and apparatus rely upon various types of load inducing mechanisms. Some typical mechanisms include springs, elastomeric bands, resilient rods, pneumatic or hydraulic cylinders, wind resistance and magnetic and electronic load resistance mechanisms. In general, the devices relying on alternative load inducing mechanisms also require a framework or support structure although the framework is often much more compact and lighter than the framework of a gym utilizing weights making it more suitable for use in a residence. Nevertheless, such devices still typically require a substantial amount of space.
The most compact of home exercise devices are those that utilize gravity in combination with a user's own weight to provide the necessary load to work the user's muscles. These devices, however, are limited in the amount of load or resistance that can be applied to particular muscle group.
A number of devices have been proposed that utilize frictional resistance to provide an exercise load, such as the devices described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,343,466 ('466), 4,560,160 ('160), 5,352,172 ('172), 3,510,132 ('132). Generally, each of these devices includes one or more handles or grips that are attached to a rope which is wrapped around a friction inducing member. While relatively compact these devices are not adapted to be particularly portable. Both '160 and '172 teach attaching the respective devices to a stud or jamb in a wall using screws or some other permanent or semi-permanent fastening means. This is especially disadvantageous to apartment dwellers or others who cannot or do not want to permanently fix something to the walls or floor of their residence. They are also not particularly easy to use potentially requiring a significant amount of time to either thread, remove or change the frictional resistance of the rope. Further, they are only suitable for exercises related to their mounting location. For instance, when the devices are mounted close to the ground, they can be used for curls but they cannot be used for curls when mounted higher on a wall. In order to use the same device for exercises requiring different mounting locations either multiple devices must be provided or at the very least multiple mounting brackets must be affixed to a wall.
Similarly to the devices discussed in the proceeding paragraph, the devices of the '132 and '466 patents do not facilitate easy rope placement, removal and frictional resistance changes. These two patents teach straps attached to the devices to permit the devices to be removably secured to a rigid structure but there are not too many rigid structures in a typical single family home, apartment or hotel room to which a strap can be wrapped and secured. Neither of these devices provides a convenient means for easily and removably securing the devices to a portion of a residential structure, such as a door or doorway. Further both the '132 and '466 devices, as well as, '172 device are fabricated from a solid metallic material that when used continuously for a period of time during exercise could become quite hot due to the frictional energy thereby causing the associated rope to degrade.